Animal exploitation and pottery use during the early LBK phases of the Neolithic site of Bylany (Czech Republic) tracked through lipid residue analysis
Introduction
Roots of the first Neolithic farming economies in Central Europe were assured by Linear Pottery Culture (LBK) societies during the 6th millennium cal. BC (Oelze et al., 2011; Saqalli et al., 2014; Berthon et al., 2018). The LBK culture in the well-known Neolithic site of Bylany (Fig. 1) is dated between 5500 and 4900 BCE (Pavlu, Zapotocka, 2007). The life at Bylany during the LBK is depicted by numerous house plans and pits as well as abundant pottery and stone tool assemblages. However, these findings are insufficient to inform us about the farming system or diet in Bylany as the faunal or botanical assemblages are very scarce or even inexistent (Pavlu, 2014).
Information about subsistence economies at Bylany can be deduced from the study of other central European settlements with rich faunal or botanical assemblages and which fall into a similar timespan. In the Bohemian region, there are 62 important LBK settlement complexes from more than 700 LBK evidenced sites (Pavlu and Zapotocka, 2007). Contrary to Bylany, some of these settlements provided abundant botanical and faunal remains. The main cultivated crops were wheat (Triticum monococcum and Triticum dicoccum), legumes such as lentil (Lens esculenta) and pea (Pisum sativum), flax (Linum usitatissimum). Other crops, such as barley (Hordeum vulgare) or millet (Panicum miliaceum) are rather rare finds as compared to remains of weeds, such as Chenopodium or Bromus (Pavlu and Zapotocka, 2007; Kocar and Dreslerova, 2010). The northern Bohemian area was likely covered by a semi natural-steppe with open-canopy pine-birch forests for animal grazing. These forests were lately replaced by oak woodlands (Pokorny, 2004; Pokorny et al., 2015). Faunal assemblages of the Bohemian LBK are represented mainly by cattle (Bos primigenius f. taurus) accompanied by finds of pigs (Sus scrofa f. domestica), sheep (Ovis) and goats (Capra). The secondary role of hunting and gathering is also documented (Peske, 1989; Pavlu and Zapotocka, 2007; Kovacikova et al., 2012; Pavlu, 2014).
One of the few methods to investigate the farming system and other economies in Bylany is the biomolecular analysis of the pottery assemblage through the extraction and analysis of absorbed residues frequently preserved in unglazed pottery walls (e.g. Evershed et al., 1997; Mukherjee et al., 2008; Whelton et al., 2017). As the pottery assemblage is well-described and very rich, comprising over 76,000 pottery fragments, this approach can be applied to different phases of the settlement, different households and even for different functional vessel categories (Pavlu, 2000).
The pottery assemblage from Bylany phase 19 (later LBK; 5th settlement interval) has already been examined for lipid residues in the study from Matlova et al., 2017, revealing a very good preservation of lipids with the common occurrence of C16:0 and C18:0 fatty acids. The fatty acids exhibited compound-specific carbon isotope composition revealing equal exploitation of both ruminant and non-ruminant carcass products. The animal sources were similar across households of different sizes or in different shape/category of vessels. Moreover, besides animal lipids, plant lipids were also detected revealing the meat- and plant-based components of the diet and specialised use of some vessels. These results shed light on an important part of the farming economy during one of the LBK periods at Bylany.
However, only one ceramic phase of Bylany was analysed in the study Matlova et al. (2017), covering a short settlement phase. This does not fully represent the diet and economy, especially the wider subsistence strategies, at the settlement of Bylany (Halstead, 1999; Kovacikova et al., 2012). Therefore, the pottery assemblage from the ceramic phases 2 to 5 covering the 1st and 2nd settlement intervals (5500–5340 BCE) was examined in the present study. Lipid residue analyses of potsherds from the earliest phases of LBK allow us to investigate how the economy during this longer settlement period fits into the wider Central European LBK context.
Section snippets
Selection of pottery
The earliest phases of Bylany (5500–5340 BCE) were distributed across area F (Fig. 6A), which shows a well-developed household system with associated household pits, isolated clay pits and grain pits, but is not as complicated and so densely populated as in the later phase 19 (Pavlu, 2010, 2014). The craftsmanship of houses and stone tool production appear to fluctuate with a gradual increasing trend from the earliest to the latest phases of the LBK settlement in area F. The coarse kitchen ware
Lipid recovery and lipid composition
Recovery of lipids from potsherds from the early phases of Bylany was very high, with >88% of 139 analysed potsherds yielded >5 μg g−1 (μg of lipid per gram of potsherd), while 40% yielded > 100 μg g−1 and 8 samples yielded more than 1 mg g−1. The recovery rate at > 100 μg g−1 is almost three times higher than the potsherds from the later phase 19 examined in Matlova et al. (2017).
Palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) acids dominated most TLEs, accompanied by odd-numbered and branched-chain
Conclusions
Lipid residue analysis of pottery fragments originating from different vessel types and from different households was carried out to gain information about farming system, diet and household economies in the earliest period of the site of Bylany. This study complements the previous results obtained about life at Bylany during the later LBK phase 19 (Matlova et al., 2017).
The lipid residue analyses revealed that the pottery assemblage of the earliest Bylany settlement phases contained a high
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
Our thanks go to Institute of Archaeology in Kutna Hora for providing the potsherds from Bylany. This work was supported by European Research Council project NeoMilk (2013–2018; FP7-IDEAS-ERC/324202 attributed to R.P.E.) and by OP RDE, MEYS, under the project “Ultra-trace isotope research in social and environmental studies using accelerator mass spectrometry”, “Reg. No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000728”. The Royal Society is thanked for funding a fellowship to M.R.S (DHF\R1\180064 and
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